What is a token sale (ICO)?
_{21 jun 2016}

ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) have become a popular way to fund cryptocurrency projects. An ICO is an event in which a new cryptocurrency project sells part of its cryptocurrency tokens to early adopters and enthusiasts in exchange for money today. ICOs provide a way for cryptocurrency project creators to raise money for their operations. Most ICOs raise money in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. The ICO usually takes place before the project is completed, and helps fund the expenses undertaken by the founding team until launch. For some of the larger projects, part of the ICO money goes into a foundation that provides ongoing support to the project. They also work as an initial distribution model for the cryptocurrency tokens, especially those with a proof of stake consensus algorithm.

https://ico-list.com/

The first ICO was for Mastercoin in 2013.
Ethereum raised money with an ICO in 2014.
ICOs are now extremely popular.
As of May 2017 there were currently around 20 offerings a month,
and a new web browser Brave's ICO generated about $35 million
in under 30 seconds. There are at least 18 websites that track ICOs.
BRON

«A common analogy that is used
to describe the relation of the Omni Layer to bitcoin
is that of HTTP to TCP/IP:
HTTP, like the Omni Layer, is the application layer
to the more fundamental transport and internet layer of TCP/IP, like bitcoin.»

(...) some 500 people invested, sending a total of about 5000 bitcoins worth about US$500,000 at the time.

Omni's role in bitcoin ecosystem is declared as being a platform for decentralized protocols.